Three decades after Christian conservatives sought to rouse voters’ fears of a “radical gay agenda,” Republicans are spending $65 million on election advertising about a “radical trans agenda,” according to The New York Times and other outlets.
“Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you,” says one of the ads, which debuted this summer and are now airing during NFL and college football games.
Most of the ads run in states where no transgender issues appear on November ballots. Rather, they’re being used to emotionally sway voters in close races for president, the Senate and the House. At the same time, Democratic ads seek to sway voters on an equally emotional culture war issue: abortion, which is on the ballot in 10 states this year.
The Times reports that $37 million of the $65 million being spent on trans-themed ads is going to unseat Ohio’s Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown. Brown’s campaign says ads claiming he supports a “radical trans agenda” distort his record.
In Missouri, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley says his Democratic opponent “supports the radical trans agenda” in ads featuring swimmer Riley Gaines, who has become a conservative superstar for her advocacy against transgender athletes.
Some of the Trump ads link the trans issue to another of his hot-button issues: immigration. “Kamala supports taxpayer-funded sex changes for prisoners and illegal aliens,” Trump says in some of the ads.
Harris said she supported gender transition medical care for prisoners in a 2019 questionnaire from the ACLU. She has not put forward proposals on the issue, nor has she addressed the issue of surgeries for imprisoned illegal immigrants.
Focus on the Family published a three-article series on Jonathan C. Richardson, an Indiana prisoner whose request for transition surgery was approved by a judge in September.
“Warning: This story would be disturbing in a novel,” begins the Focus series. “In real life, it’s downright sickening. Guard your hearts before reading on.” The article concludes: “Of all the important functions tax dollars serve, I can confidently say paying for the construction of Mr. Richardson’s false vagina should be at the bottom of the list.”
Focus led efforts to galvanize voters against gay rights in the 1990s. At the time, most Americans opposed same-sex marriage, but today 69% support its legalization, reports Gallup. Today Focus claims “There is no such thing as a ‘trans kid’” and “There’s no such thing as a transgender athlete.”
Focus’ public policy partner, the Family Policy Alliance, began working on its transgender game plan in 2014 and now works with allied groups in 41 states. These state groups helped pass legislation in more than 20 GOP-led states restricting transgender athletes and medical procedures.
Democrats oppose such legislation, and this year vice presidential candidate and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed an executive order protecting gender-affirming health care in the state.
Americans’ views on transgender issues are “complex” and unsettled, polls show. When it comes to public policy, “overall, a 64% majority of Americans favor policies that protect transgender individuals from discrimination in jobs, housing and public spaces such as restaurants and stores,” says a 2022 report from Pew Research.
Pew also found many Americans are uneasy with the pace of change on trans issues. In 2022, six in 10 U.S. adults say that whether a person is a man or a woman is determined by their sex assigned at birth, up from 56% one year ago and 54% in 2017.
The group said appeals to transgender issues did not work with voters in 2022 but did create lasting damage for the trans community.
A majority of Americans oppose transgender treatments and procedures for teens, and most oppose trans athletes competing against female athletes, an issue addressed in the pro-GOP ads covered by The Times. “It’s just wrong,” says one ad. “It’s unfair and dangerous,” says another. In Texas, ads for Sen. Ted Cruz say his Democratic opponent is “wrong for our girls.”
Self-identified LGBTQ voters were 7% of the 2022 electorate, a midterm record, said the pro-LGBTQ group Human Rights Campaign, and 80% of them supported House Democrats that year.
The group said appeals to transgender issues did not work with voters in 2022 but did create lasting damage for the trans community: “While the attacks were ineffective with the general electorate and in fact repelled swing voters, they still caused harm, including increasing stigma, discrimination and violence against the transgender community.”
GOP strategists claim the trans-themed ads are working this year, particularly with college-educated suburban women.
Trump also has falsely claimed that men who claimed to be transgender unfairly competed against women at the Olympics. Some Trump-aligned candidates have followed suit.
Colorado Rep. Laruen Boebert, who is campaigning in a new district, has used Olympic boxer Imane Khelif of Algeria in her campaign. Conservatives, including Focus, claim Khelif is a man “now famous for punching women in the face.”
Boebert launched a campaign to raise funds for Angela Carini, the boxer Khelif defeated, but Carini said she didn’t want any of the money Boebert had raised in her name, reported The Independent.
Related articles:
These Olympic boxers are not transgender but their experience illustrates transphobia | Analysis by Cynthia Vacca Davis
Why being transgender is not a sin | Opinion by Mark Wingfield